Constant crashes on OSX 10.10.1. Unable to use Houdini :(

I recently installed Houdini 14 but I can't use it. It crashes constantly. If I try and apply the Mountain SOP to anything it crashes. If I try and select points and use the transform tools it crashes, theres a few other ways it crashes but those are the ones I can repeat constantly. I already tried a reinstallation as well as switching between the Apple and Nvidia drivers (the latest, straight from their site.)

I saw crashes mentioned but I only found solutions for Windows, nothing for Mac.

I finally have a few weeks to start learning Houdini and then this happens Has anyone else run into this issue or know of a solution?

I'm on Houdini Apprentice I'm not sure if SideFx wants me to file a bug report. I know some software only wants paying users to submit bug reports but I can generate crash logs easily enough if it helps. Here is one:

Display options / Background > turn off display env lights as background, set to off and you still get the blue gradient in the viewport with the colour scheme set to light.

Create a sphere > add vdb_from polygons = Crash .

Rob

This pretty much sums up my experience. I saw a sticky I somehow missed explaining what to do when you find a bug in apprentice version so I'm going to follow that when I get home.

I literally can't do anything at the moment, as soon as I add geometry or try and connect anything or even mess with preferences I get a crash On the plus side I can really easily reproduce the crashes either by moving individual points on a plane with the transform tools, or using the mountain SOP on the monster test geometry.

Everyone is encouraged to submit bug reports, paying customer or not. Especially crash logs. We love crash logs (though of course we love it more when Houdini doesn't crash…).

The OSX/nVidia issue is almost certainly a video driver bug which we are trying to find some way around. We've had to work around driver bugs before, but this one is proving to be particularly stubborn. These easily reproducible test cases are really helping out though. Before release we had seen crash logs like this on a few occasions, but had not been able to establish a pattern. Now we can attempt fixes and actually test them to see if they work…

Anyway, we are well aware of the issue now and will keep you posted if/when we make some progress on it.

mtuckerEveryone is encouraged to submit bug reports, paying customer or not. Especially crash logs. We love crash logs (though of course we love it more when Houdini doesn't crash…).

The OSX/nVidia issue is almost certainly a video driver bug which we are trying to find some way around. We've had to work around driver bugs before, but this one is proving to be particularly stubborn. These easily reproducible test cases are really helping out though. Before release we had seen crash logs like this on a few occasions, but had not been able to establish a pattern. Now we can attempt fixes and actually test them to see if they work…

Anyway, we are well aware of the issue now and will keep you posted if/when we make some progress on it.

Thanks for your help and your patience!

Mark

Thanks! Do you just want the log or the .hip file it creates too? I noticed in temp directory next to the log there's a .hip file but it appears empty anytime I open it. I can reproduce the crashes every time so if there's anything I can do to help just let me know.

chrono1081Thanks! Do you just want the log or the .hip file it creates too? I noticed in temp directory next to the log there's a .hip file but it appears empty anytime I open it. I can reproduce the crashes every time so if there's anything I can do to help just let me know.

I'll be sure to file a bug report when I get home.

Unless the steps are really easy to repro, or you know for a fact they don't need the hip file, it doesn't hurt to just zip up the log and hip files, and send them to SideFX together.

HiAre you starting H from the Houdini Terminal? or just from double clicking the App icon?I had the same experience you're having, but after i began starting H from the Houdini Terminal i haven't crashed once. I'm using 10.10.1 and GTX 680.

I always use a terminal . what might matter is what mac book pro version + graphics card people are using. To be frank I would be happy to see all the fancy view port jazz dropped on the OSX version just for usability

We've already tried that with H12/13 and the GL2 viewport renderer, using Apple's GL2.1 driver. It proved too difficult to maintain, and it still ran into constant driver bugs.

We were hoping that Apple's GL3 core-profile implementation would be more solid, especially since they didn't implement any of the fixed-function GL1-2 compatibility features, and GL3 is more strictly defined. However, it's still quite buggy, which is terribly disappointing given how much work was done just to get Houdini running in the GL3 core profile on OSX.

And we're really not doing fancy stuff. It's pretty standard shader, buffer, and texture stuff for GL3. The fancy stuff would be Pixar's OpenSubDiv GL4 adaptive subdivsion code, which to my knowledge no one's been able to get running on OSX.

Bottom line - we'd all be much better off if Apple loosened up and let Nvidia, AMD and Intel implement their own OpenGL interfaces on OSX. Yes, even Intel now produces a more stable OpenGL implementation on Windows than Apple does on OSX.

Hopefully Apple will come to their senses and either let the experts handle it, or hire someone to fix it internally. Both Marks have been doing an incredible job trying to work around the moving blackholes of OpenGL in OS X, thanks guys!

Rob, if you can dual boot Windows or Linux, for cases where workarounds take a while to get patched, that's a good bet (that's what I've done, where possible). But as far as not fixable issues, the problems often only manifest themselves in specific hardware + software combinations.

For example, my 2011 MacBook Pro (6770M) had lots of problems that weren't present in the Desktop cards running OS X, or even other AMD MacBooks. I would just keep submitting them to SideFX as you encounter them, with system info and screengrabs/repro steps where possible. It's not ideal, but like Mark said, until Apple gets their butts in gear…

Seems like an OS X permissions issue. When launching from the Terminal it appears you're a super user (su) but when launched from an icon double click access to some libs are denied. So wondering if all permissions are set/flagged correctly for Houdini's library during initial installation. OS X seems to be secretly setting said permissions so they don't always have immediate access to system libs (OGL). Hmm, maybe SideFX should consider passing certain OGL crash logs directly to Apple developers via OS X's built in crash reporter. :?